The goal of the system

S.T.A.L.K.E.R introduced the world to a system they called A-Life.

A-Life is the brain behind everything that happens within the fictional zone of alienation, which is a term used for the Chernobyl exclusion zone within the game and in real life. It controls how things happen and how things react around the player’s actions. There is a limit to this, however, and this is labelled as offline and online A-Life as a way to save from performance issues. from BlackShellMedia

The world of Tales from the Dome is alive, the characters you interact with have the own goals in the world, they may be traders, they may be vultures, they may just be hungry.

The idea of the Living World system draws from the A-Life system designed by S.T.A.L.K.E.R and aims to extend it. Our version of “offline” and “online” is Off-Map and On-Map.

When a character enters the same level as the player, they are considered “On-Map” and they have a visual representation in the game world along with a more advanced utility system driving their behaviours.

The AI Simulation

Every character in the world has an AISimulationAgent, this is lightweight data class storing the state of the agent in the world and their current goal.

Off-Map

The Off-Map simulation is using a StateTree to drive a lot of the behaviors, moving the agent from one area to the next by using pre-defined nodes on a graph representing the world. When they enter an area they choose a task they want to undertake based off of their AISimulationAgent data, then simulate that action being undertaken.

This can range from Trading to Combat. Once those actions are complete they choose an area to move to and begin the loop over again.

On-Map

The On-Map simulation is using a custom Utility System I’ve built that makes use of multiple Behaviour Trees to control the agent in the world. When they swap from Off-Map to On-Map, their state is translated into this system and they carry out their task in the area with the player.

This could mean you hear gunshots in the distance or spot characters running away because they don’t have a weapon.

Where can we follow development?

On our the Discord or on Youtube.